


Home Before Dark

by jujus_writing_corner



Series: Whumptober 2020 [26]
Category: Real Person Fiction, Youtube RPF
Genre: Concussions, Gen, Head Injury, Illy gets hurt in a cave and has to get out, Not much else than that, Vomiting, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29925282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujus_writing_corner/pseuds/jujus_writing_corner
Summary: This cave trip was supposed to be a fun, easy adventure. Instead, Illinois falls through a hidden hole in the ground, and finds himself battling with a concussion as he tries to escape the cave before he can't anymore.Whumptober Day 26: If You Thought The Head Trauma Was Bad...Prompt: Concussion
Relationships: Implied Yancy/Illinois
Series: Whumptober 2020 [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947961
Kudos: 3
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Home Before Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Poor Illinois, he's too much fun to whump XD
> 
> Enjoy!

Illinois could never get tired of this, of the dirt and sand under his boots, of the quiet tranquility of a cave system, of the places that haven’t seen a human in many years. He’s had his eye on this cave for a while, one of the rare adventures where he doesn’t expect a treasure at the end of the tunnel. Exploration and adventure is fun without a reward, and Lio likes traveling for travel’s sake. There doesn’t always need to be a goal, sometimes it’s fun to just be.

Of course, he’d like to follow the cave as deep as it can go. The cave isn’t totally explored, and he’s not foolish enough to go wiggling into a cavern he could get stuck in, but he’d like to see those caverns before he turns around and goes home. Caves are sometimes risky but they’re also a lot of fun. They aren’t as high-intensity as jungle treks or mountain climbs, but more strenuous and with more potential for unique experiences than hikes or forest walks. The cave he’s in now is quiet, no sound but water dripping somewhere far away. It’s dark, but not so dark that Lio’s headlamp can’t light his way forward. Lio sort of hopes he’ll see a cave creature at some point on his journey, but even if he doesn’t, there’s something exciting about being the only soul in a place.

These places make it easy to get lost in thought, and so Lio does, not coming back to the present until his foot touches an unsteady patch of ground just below him.

He tries to jump back but it’s already too late. The ground below him breaks apart and Lio falls among the rocks, a scream of surprise ripping from his throat. There’s not enough time to right himself in the air, and the first part of him to hit the ground is the side of his head. The blow knocks the wind out of him. Rocks fall around him, some bouncing off his back or legs, but they hardly register against Lio’s throbbing head. His vision swims and he lays there for a long moment, trying to remember how to breathe.

_“Don’t pass out, Jones,”_ he thinks to himself, _“Now is not the time for a nap.”_

After several long moments, he’s finally able to lift his head and sit up. His head still hurts, but he can at least think straight and look around – mostly. Things are still a little blurry, but it’s nothing he can’t deal with.

He looks up to see that he hasn’t fallen too far, certainly not too far to climb back out of. He shrugs off his backpack to get his climbing gloves. He didn’t bring any ropes; there’s no use for them without a point at which to attach them, and in a situation like this, that’d be a two-person job. Once the gloves are on, he stands up – and immediately wobbles. His stomach rolls, and he has to pause, take a deep breath.

“Well, I’m definitely concussed,” he wheezes to himself. As if the blurred vision wasn’t enough of a clue.

Still, he doesn’t have any other way but climbing to get out of this hole. So he takes another deep breath, jumps onto the wall, and makes sure he has a good grip before he starts climbing.

It’s harder than he would’ve guessed. If his head wasn’t still giving him trouble it’d be easy, but as it is, he has to pause seemingly every inch to let his head stop swimming. But he knows this continual pausing is bad for the rest of him, and if he gets too tired, he’ll fall down again. He forces himself to keep climbing, forces his eyes to pick out secure spots for his hands to grab through the blurriness.

One hand slips, the section of wall he grabbed crumbling away. He scrambles for another, cursing himself for not seeing the integrity of the rock. He finds a place to hold onto and takes a moment for his racing heart to calm down. He can’t take long, though; his arms are beginning to tire of holding himself up, his feet are aching from curling around the rocks. He grits his teeth and keeps going.

Finally, after what feels like forever, he reaches the edge of the hole, and grunts as he heaves himself up and over and escapes.

“That sure was a workout,” he huffs, laying there on his stomach next to the hole he just climbed out of.

After a minute of catching his breath, he rolls over and sits up, looking ahead. The hole doesn’t span the entire width of the cave path, and considering the walls of the hole were strong enough to carry him, Lio should be able to walk around it. Hell, he could even jump over it if he got a running start; the hole is pretty small. His head still hurts, his vision is still a bit blurry, but a part of him wants to keep going and finish the adventure he started.

Then he stands up, and wobbles so much he nearly falls back into the hole. His stomach turns again as he takes a few steps back, putting some distance between himself and the hole.

“Alright, point taken,” he gasps. His head throbs, seemingly in response.

Still, he’s not overly worried. If he was able to climb a rock wall, surely walking home will be no problem, right?

It isn’t at first. The path he took to this point is a bit winding, but it’s mostly a straight shot to follow to the entrance – or exit, in this case. He walks slower than he did on the way in, still tired from climbing. He winces every so often as the pain in his head spikes in harshness. Things are still blurry...and if he’s not mistaken, they’re getting blurrier. He’s glad he decided to turn back. Really, he wants to take a nap. But he’s still cognizant enough to realize that that’s a bad idea.

When he comes to a fork in the path, he pauses. He’d forgotten this was here. He tries to remember which way is the right way back, but nothing comes to mind. He frowns at himself; he’s usually much better at remembering things like that, to the point where he hardly ever leaves himself markers to guide himself back. He stares at the forked path, hoping a solution might materialize. For a moment, the cave becomes darker.

He shakes his head, immediately regretting it, but at least his vision isn’t black anymore. Upon looking up again, he just barely spies his old footprints on one side of the forked path through his blurred vision. There’s no wind in this cave, so his prints were left undisturbed. Now satisfied, Lio walks over his old footprints and continues on his way out of the cave.

The satisfaction doesn’t last. His body feels like lead, each step is harder than the last. Blackness keeps fluttering into his vision, once or twice he catches himself standing still, swaying against his aching brain. It feels like jello sliding around in his skull, sending pings of pain through his head every time it hits a wall.

And here he thought he could walk home. At this rate, he’ll be lucky to make it out of the cave.

Fortunately, the warm light of the outside comes into view after what feels like an eternity of walking. At this point, it’s more like stumbling. Lio’s head is swimming, his vision is so blurry he can hardly see. But if he can’t go any further, then he’ll have to call or text someone for help. He fumbles around in his pocket for his phone, and it takes him a good few moments to get a grip on it. A sudden wave of nausea grips him, and instead of passing like the last two did, it only spikes by the second, until Lio has to use his free hand to brace himself against the mouth of the cave as he vomits onto the dirt.

“Ffffuck,” he mutters. The word slurs on its way out of his throat.

The vomiting only makes his head pound harder, and when he opens his phone, he can’t concentrate enough to find the right buttons. He ends up texting...someone, he can’t even tell who. He’s too out of it to care. He only manages a single word: _h ekjp._

At some point he sits down in the dirt, unable to keep standing. He’s not cognizant enough to tell himself not to nod off anymore. He would have, if not for his phone suddenly vibrating and ringing in his hands. Luckily, he’s still able to answer.

“Lio, hey, are you okay?” says Yancy’s voice on the other line, concerned. “That text you just sent me is really weird, it’s got me kinda worried about youse.”

“Heyyy,” Lio mumbles, smiling a little through his wretched headache.

“Noisy? What’s going on?”

“F...fffell. Hit muh head.” Lio pauses to groan through a particularly bad spike of agony. “G...got out, but ’m tired...”

“Hey, hold on, stay awake!” Yancy cries, voice going shrill with fear. “Just hang in there, babe, I’m gonna get help, someone’ll come get youse soon! Just don’t hang up, alright?”

Lio lets the phone drop out of his hands onto the ground. He’s too tired to understand anything. The phone lands face-up, he can still hear Yancy talking to him, but nothing registers. He sighs, leans against the mouth of the cave, closes his eyes against his headache. It feels as if his brain is splitting open. Yancy’s voice on the phone gets louder, and suddenly it gets quieter, and his blurred vision fades from the edges in, and then all of it disappears as Lio falls into oblivion.

**Author's Note:**

> This is getting a continuation, so you'll get to find out what happens to Illy soon (hopefully) ;3


End file.
